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Floating Storage Begins To Fill Up As Oil Demand Wavers – OilPrice.com

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Floating Storage Begins To Fill Up As Oil Demand Wavers | OilPrice.com

Irina Slav

Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.

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Huge floating oil storage builds earlier this year became a major cause for oil price falls as the pandemic wiped out demand. Then, as OPEC+ started cutting production and countries began emerging from lockdowns, floating storage inventories began to decline, boosting prices. Now, they’re creeping up again–but this time, it’s fuel inventories.

Commodity major Trafigura recently chartered at least five Very Large Crude Carriers, each capable of carrying up to 2 million barrels of oil or fuels, according to a Reuters report that cited shipping data and unnamed trading sources. Some of these were newbuilds, too. They are most likely going to be used to store gasoil and diesel, according to the report, as inventories of these two fuels were particularly high. And Trafigura’s peers are booking tankers, too.

It’s not just diesel and gasoil. All distillate fuel stocks are a problem. In the United States, refiners have been struggling with rising distillate inventories for weeks now as air travel remains severely restricted, jet fuel demand is in the ditch, and there are no alternative venues for the oil product. Refiners have been raising their gasoline production, but demand for gasoline has also been slow to recover and inventories there also remain above the five-year average despite several hefty draws.

The trend is certainly worrying for those banking on an oil price rebound driven by fuel demand recovery, which is pretty much everyone who produces fuels. Demand was expected to recover more or less consistently after the lockdowns barring a second wave of infections. But while some countries have indeed experienced what looks like two distinct waves of Covid-19 infections, for others, including the world’s largest oil consumer globally, the U.S., it has been a single but prolonged wave. Uncertainty about pretty much everything from employment to vaccine development remains ample, and this is affecting oil demand. Related: The Nine Key Points In Biden’s Energy Strategy

Normally, traders start hoarding oil—or oil products—when prices are low but are expected to rise in the future. There is a decent degree of certainty prices will rise because that’s how things work in oil. This is all in the past now. Earlier this year, storage builds were so abundant that some began to worry the world would run out of storage space. Prices tanked. Now, traders can only hope that prices will improve in the future and they won’t suffer losses from storing fuels.

“It is increasingly clear that market fundamentals are not improving as quickly as expected, particularly on the demand side,” Morgan Stanley’s Martijn Rats said in a recent note, as quoted by Reuters. He added that despite a stable draw in crude oil and fuel stocks, these remain at historic highs, with this particularly true for fuels, which, according to Rats, stayed at “stubbornly” high levels.

What this suggests is that refiners restarted crude buying earlier this year in anticipation of a rebound in demand for fuels. This rebound, however, never came to pass, and now refiners—and commodity traders—are stuck with millions of barrels of fuels they can’t sell. What makes things worse is that the latest data on oil demand, particularly from China, is not encouraging at all. Earlier this month Saudi Arabia’s Aramco served an unpleasant surprise to oil markets by announcing it was sharply cutting its official selling prices for oil. The cuts would affect Asian, U.S., and northwestern European clients. Meanwhile, worry has been growing that China had stuffed itself with cheap oil and its buying spree, which helped prices stay stable during the summer, was coming to an end.

When one of the world’s top oil producers, which has so far been rather upbeat about the future of oil demand, slashes its prices, it speaks volumes. In all public statements, Aramco’s leadership has been confident that oil demand was recovering nicely, about to reach pre-crisis levels sooner rather than later. The company even raised its prices for Asian buyers earlier this year, boosting benchmarks. Now, it’s cutting prices. Add to this the news from China and the picture becomes grimmer.

Economists have been talking about L-shaped, V-shaped, and W-shaped recovery scenarios for the U.S. and global economy. The oil market appears to be stuck in a sort of recovery that no letter fits.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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TC Energy cuts cost estimate for Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico

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CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.

It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.

The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.

Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.

TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.

The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:TRP)

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BCE reports Q3 loss on asset impairment charge, cuts revenue guidance

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BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.

The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.

“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.

“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”

Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.

BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.

The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.

BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.

It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.

The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”

Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:BCE)

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Canada Goose reports Q2 revenue down from year ago, trims full-year guidance

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TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.

The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.

Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.

In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.

It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:GOOS)

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